The Birmingham News reports: Nell Hunter has a cold, but the only reason she's home on this chilly December morning is that she retired last month from the Jefferson County Board of Registrars office after more than 40 years as its chairman.

The decision came three months shy of her 89th birthday, without any advance notice.

"I just decided that I'd had enough and I thought, 'Well, I'll just get out of here,'" Hunter said. "I don't want any fanfare and I don't want anybody acting like they're sorry I'm going."

Hunter is the only chairman the registrars office, created in 1967, has ever had. She served under 12 Alabama gubernatorial administrations, nine U.S. presidents and nearly three dozen county commissioners.